Correlations between attitude toward Christianity, prayer, and church attendance among 9- to 11-yr.-olds

Data provided by 150 9- to 11-yr.-old primary school pupils in England showed scores on the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity more highly correlated with (personal) prayer (r = .57) than with (public) church attendance (r = .23), providing support for the view that attitude scales access a deeper level of religiosity less contaminated by those contextual and social factors which may influence public church attendance more than personal prayer.     

Personality,prayer and church attendance among a sample of 11 to 18 year olds in Norway

A series of recent studies has employed various measures of Eysenck's dimensional model of personality alongside questions of frequency of personal prayer and church attendance. The consensus from these studies suggests it is psychoticism, rather than extraversion or neuroticism that is fundamental to a greater frequency of personal prayer and church attendance. The present study tested the generalizability of these findings by examining the association between measure of personal prayer and church attendance and the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire among a sample of 479 11- to 18-year-old Norwegian school children. For the total sample a significant association was found between a greater frequency of both personal prayer and church attendance and lower psychoticism scores. These findings are consistent with previous research and with Eysenck's theory regarding individual differences in social attitudes.     

From state church to faith community: an analysis of worldly and spiritual power in the Church of Sweden

The aim of this article is to discuss the current legislation, and power structures in and between different levels of the Church of Sweden in terms of church–state relations and secularisation, with the help of theories from sociology of religion and ecclesiology drawn from José Casanova, Grace Davie and Avery Dulles. With themes from Lutheran theology, including the two regiments and the common priesthood of all believers, we analyse the current legislation and power structures from the perspective of the so-called ‘dual line of responsibility’. The underlying hypothesis is that the structures of the former state church are still deciding the power structures in the Church of Sweden. This creates obscurity concerning the role of the church in public society and negatively affects the ecclesiastical development of the church now that it has lost its earlier status as a state church.